Musician and DIY guy, I actually got into guitars when a buddy of mine back in the day found a Silvertone 1484 and a PAIR of the twin 15" speaker cabs in a dumpster. He wanted the speakers (Little did I know then they were Jensen Alnico) because they were massive and had to make his stereo loud LoL. I was impressed enough with the head that I (at 15 years of age) found out what was wrong with it, fixed it, re-tubed it and had a working amp. For what? My walkman? So for X-mas my mom and dad got me a pawnshop les paul copy and through a junk set of stereo speakers I was on my way. Next item was a '68 bandmaster head that needed tubes and the output transformer (being tubes theres not that much that can go wrong!) Then like the fool I am I traded the 1484 in on another guitar. Now. thanks to Jack White those things are pricey! But that was 20 years ago too! I didn't care, I had a 40-50 watt bandmaster running through a pair of 12" somethings that were in a custom cab, I might as well have been Tony Iommi in my own mind! I knew a man that let me and my 2 friends into his bar (C'mon it was like the 80's! ) NOT to drink,but to gig. The house band would take a break between sets and we would fill in, it was a biker hang out, pretty seedy, We walked in I had my strat in hand, my other buds had drumsticks and bass in hand and it was CULTURE SHOCK!! The only time I ever saw a 100w Marshall lead half stack before was in a magazine and our bass player was like "uhhh gallian-what?" so after some nerves died down we settled in and figured rough (today to me they just look like fat trash!) customers like that wanted to hear some Steppenwolf, ZZ Top, Sabbath, Ozzy, Zeppelin, we reserved the Beatles and such for non-gigs. So we'd play 4 or 5 tunes-no vocals, none of us could sing so ever now and then some patron would jump up and grab the mic like it was karaoke or something it was a blast. so we'd do that about 2 times a night then the next morning get up and go to CHURCH where we played church songs. This is where the proverbial feces hit the fan, way early before evening worship we were wanting to work on some new songs so we had a couple zepp songs, Guns N' Roses had hit the scene, some Aerosmith.

Well lets just say we caught UNholy hell for that one!

So everything went back to "Ok church starts soon get ready to play" and it bothered me we were yelled at, really for no reason, I played one number unplugged my guitar and left! I never set foot in there again until I went with my mother when I was about 35 years old! Now my music tastes consists of about the same but my electronic knowledge has increased by leaps and bounds!

I am updating this on my 40th Birthday 7-13